Flashman and the Iron Throne
by Zalgo Jenkins
Summary: Flashman / GoT crossover. Collection of snippets/drabbles from a hypothetical Flashman novel where a portal opened between the British Empire and Westeros in the 1880s.
1. Excerpt, Chapter 1

**Author Notes:** Another fugitive challenge-fic from a forum, this time Spacebattles. This developed from a thread about a portal appearing between Westeros and the 1880s British Empire.

Unfortunately, this won't end up a complete story. I'll just be posting drabbles/snippets. I have much less time these days than I'd like.

* * *

**Excerpt, Chapter 1: Flashman and the Iron Throne  
**

As portents of misfortune go, Balmoral Castle ranks high in my personal pantheon. I'd always found the people rude, the cattle hairy, the weather frigid, and the conversation fiendishly dull - though Albert's passing had improved the latter slightly.

Age and creaky joints had not improved matters. I'd been young and careless when Ignatiev had nearly done for me there in '56,**[1]** but one would have thought that the ill luck that attended that place would have faded by '81. I was near sixty, after all; the old war-horse dragged out of his stable to tell stories for our Westerosi visitors.

Predictably, perhaps, those Westerosi visitors had taken to Scotland with greater enthusiasm than the Scots themselves. I'd spent the better part of the week chasing deer up mountains with the lunatic goat-botherers, and their glee at firing shotguns at random had done little for my temper. They were all for it, though. Presumably they found it an improvement on hunting Westerosi elk with their teeth. Elspeth had decided that they were charming. ("Why _Harry!_ Their clothing! It's so, ah..._C'est picturesque!_")

Westeros was still a new development in those days, you see. It had sprung up like something out of _Phantastes _only the year before, when Her Britannic Majesty had found herself sharing a land border with a foreign power for the first time since the Black Prince's day.**[2]**

Yet here I was, summoned to a smoky room with wood paneling and mounted dead animals, staring across the table at Gladstone. When I close my eyes, I can still see his perpetual, jowled frown and frizz of hair.

A short, thin man stood behind him. The man wore a black coat and red silk vest, and at first I mistook him for a European. I realized my error in a moment or two, when I took another look at the pointed beard on his chin. I'd seen the _Punch_ illustrations enough to guess who he was.

I should have seen it coming, then.

Gladstone stood, gesturing for us to shake hands. The other fellow crossed the room in quick steps. He smiled as he clasped my hand. It was a touch too quick, that smile. His gray-green eyes seemed to dance when one looked closely. I'd seen that expression before. Brooke had it. Josiah Harlan had it. Rudi Starnberg had it. They'd all nearly killed me with different varieties of boyish enthusiasm, and I already suspected which kind Mr. Baelish dealt in.

_Hullo, Flashy_, thinks I. _Here's one to watch your back around._

He shook for only a moment_ - _enthusiastically, but not too hard - before the Prime Minister grumbled that this was Petyr Baelish, emissary of King Baratheon.**[3]**

"Charmed," I said.

He flashed another of his too-quick smiles.

"Likewise," he said. "It's not every day that one can meet a man who survived Jalalabad and_..._what was the location in China again? My knowledge of your world is still - regrettably - limited."

I doubted it, but gave him the necessary place-names for form's sake. I'd hoped to forestall the inevitable. Unfortunately, Gladstone cut that off at the pass, so to speak.

"Please be seated, Mr. Flashman."

The chair creaked as I lowered myself into it. My companions followed suit. Baelish crossed his legs and perched a hand on the chain of his pocketwatch, looking for all the world like some satisfied country gentleman. Or a mill owner.

I'd refuse, I decided. Whatever it was, I'd refuse. For the love of...I was almost retired at that point! An old man who'd survived Isandlwana only the year before_, _wheezing and rattling across the Veldt in a cart steered by a much more competent soldier.**[4]**

Baelish was talking.

"...much do you know about King Robert Baratheon?"

"Eh?" I said. "Oh...er, warrior king, ain't he? Heir of the Six Kingdoms or something of that sort. Not much at all."

I'd taken care to subtly emphasize my "_not much_". I had also omitted that His Majesty had a reputation for drinking and whoring that would have made Jeendan blush.**[5]**

Baelish's almost-polite smile remained in place.

"No matter, of course," he said. "My sources have assured me you're a quick study. Jhansi, the Imperial Palace, Tewodros-whatsisname...Ethapia, was it? Etheepia? No, that's not quite-"

"Ethiopia," I said. "And what's this about needing to study? Surely you don't mean to send me-"

Baelish slapped his thigh and grinned. The movement started and stopped with the slightest jolt. Controlled, like everything else I'd seen from the fellow so far.

"Of _course_," he said. "Ethiopia! My mistake. And to answer your question, I'm afraid that Robert Baratheon succeeded to the throne of the _Seven _Kingdoms very shakily indeed."

"There's a pretender," Gladstone said. "Two of them, actually. A brother and sister."

"Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen," Baelish said. "Fair-haired and empty-headed. Not much of a threat. Except-"

Baelish paused for a moment, savoring his own dramatic buildup like someone sucking the juice out of an orange. Gladstone tired of it first.

"They've recruited an army," Gladstone said. "Dothraki."

"A remarkable people," Baelish said. "Not unlike the - Tajiks, are they? - that you've already dealt with. You're a known savage-charmer, I'm afraid."

Cold fingers worked their way up my chest. I had trouble breathing. For all Kashgar's dubious charms, everything I'd heard about the Dothraki suggested that dear Yakub would have been disgusted by the lot of them.**[6]** The Apaches I'd met in America would have fit the bill more closely.

It was happening again. Baelish's voice droned on in that half-drawl, half-lilt that he'd developed through cross-pollination of the Queen's English and his own Westerosi accent.

"...Not to mention your talent for languages. They say it's similar to Welsh of all things. Or Basque. Your Cambridge linguists aren't all of one mind on the point."

"What?"

Baelish raised an eyebrow.

"The Dothraki language," he said. "Oh, and your...ah...other talents. They say milady Daenerys is quite _curious_ about your world, and it's a mission that calls for _delicacy_. We need someone _discreet_ to lead her down the primrose path to accommodation with the Crown."

The implication must have sailed over Gladstone's head, since he didn't launch into his usual tirade of pious fustian.

* * *

[1] Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev, Russian diplomat. See _Flashman and the Great Game_. - G.M.F.

[2] The "Phenomenon" (Mar. 12, 1881) connected Westeros to Britain through a pair of dimensional gates, permitting land and sea travel between worlds. _Phantastes_ (1858), by George Macdonald, is considered one of the first fantasy novels.

[3] Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, 1851-1884, Master of Coin and Westeros's first ambassador to England. A political opportunist, Baelish played a prominent role in the Succession Crisis of 1881-83. As Flashman notes, Baelish was unique among his Westerosi contemporaries in adopting the customs of Victorian society when in England.

[4] Flashman errs here by at least a year; the Battle of Isandlwana occurred in January of 1879. See _Flashman and the Tiger_.

[5] Flashman presumably refers to Maharani Jind Kaur, the "Messalina of the Punjab", whose considerable appetites for sex and alcohol Flashman had observed firsthand.

[6] Yaqub Beg, Central Asian warlord. See _Flashman at the Charge._


	2. Excerpt, Chapter 13

**Excerpt, Chapter 13: Flashman and the Iron Throne**

Jorah lead me to the knoll where Daenerys waited. The bastard did it none too gently. My own taunting the night before had seen to that. I felt blood tingling on my shoulders where he'd shoved me, sharpened by the chill in the air. Aye, winter _was_ coming, all right.

Daenerys turned. She greeted her pet amorous thug with a smile and tilt of the head, before turning to me.

"Lord Flashman," she said. "Your General Wolseley is waiting for us."

Dany had said it in English, softening my native language in that cross-bred Westerosi-Dothraki trill of hers. _Waiteeng forr us._

Vicky's army in Westeros was crawling along the river's edge. It looked for all the world like some great banded snake, alternating khaki, red, and bottle green. The 92nd Highlanders' kilts billowed ever so slightly in the sharp wind. Lancepoints glinted among the Queen's 9th, as clouds of steam rose from their horses' breath. A train of guns, Gardners, and Gatlings lumbered in the background.

All very impressive, I'm sure. But then I saw what Wolseley was "waiting for".

Years later, I encountered a description of the Khaleesi's host in one of the grandlings' books. One of the little delinquents had decided to inflict the story upon "dear gwandpapa" at about a sentence a minute, complete with puffed-out cheeks whenever he reached a difficult word.

I'd borne it with good humor.

Until, that is, a certain pompous ass of an author had insisted that the two sides were about even. "Armies matched in numbers and valor…dragons and swords against the Martini-Henry", or some such nonsense. As if it was cricket match.**[1]**

It was nothing of the sort.

To be sure, Daenerys had lost a few in the crossing. Her lizard's death in the Narrow Sea had brought its share of desertions as well, though Rhaegal had massacred _Penelope's_ crew in the bargain.**[2][3] **

Even so, the Khaleesi had us beat for sheer mass. Badly. Thirty thousand at least, and half of them Dothraki screamers. A solid, angry lump of lances, pigtails and lariats.

Rhaegal's two surviving siblings glided in the air above us. The air warped around their muzzles from the heat.**[4]**

_Good luck to you, Sir Garnet_, I thought. _You'll need every ounce of it._

I don't have the luxury of viewing a battle from a distance very often – Sobraon being the notable exception – but Dany had chosen her ground carefully, if not necessarily well. A river and village anchored her left, with more villages on her center and right. Unsullied infantry guarded the ground with guns they'd looted from the Narrow Sea Squadron.

Dany's forces sat on the road to King's Landing, with a bridge at their back. I noted, though, that she hadn't chosen ideal cavalry country. Westeros had too many rolling woods for that.

More Unsullied were kept in reserve, covering the bridge with stolen rifles. The entire line must have been three miles if it was an inch. Long, but thin. Brittle.

Wolsely was patient, though. He'd anchored his own right wing on the river, using woods to guard his flanks. The British infantry advanced through the mist in a slightly staggered formation. It looked like something out of the Seven Years' War, with trees masking their oblique left.

Congreves shrieked. Artillery shells exploded around the Dothraki, sending their horses into screaming fits.

The Scots on the left lurched toward the Dothraki to the sound of horse artillery. They advanced in skirmish order of all things, bayonets fixed as they moved through the forest. Rapidly. They formed along the road.

It must have surprised Dany, that speed. She snapped off an order, and the flank Dothraki slowly began pooling toward the center again. With far less discipline.

Still, I couldn't quite slow my heartbeat at the sound of thousands of Dothraki hooves. They were yelling and swinging weapons. They were ready.

Dany let them go.

British bugles sounded when the Dothraki charged. Or at least, they must have. I only saw the glimmer of brass from the hill.

The Highlanders had already begun forming themselves into squares; everyone else took cover in a long ditch running along the road. The Martini Henrys crackled. Dothraki tumbled out of their saddles. Horses crashed into each other. Animals tumbled, crushing their riders.

Cannons blasted away. Large, bloody holes streaked through the Dothraki line. Plumes of smoke from gunpowder and dust swirled around the battleground. More riderless horses trotted out. I assumed that the Gatlings had started firing.

A few minutes later, masses of Dothraki whirled out again from the melee. Some were bloody. Many were on foot.

I learned later that some of the Dothraki had reached their targets. The square had been broken at one point, but the 42nd had pitchforked them out again hand-to-hand.

Not without cost. By the time the clouds had started to dissipate, the British advance had resumed. They left hundreds of kilted corpses and thousands of Dothraki behind.

And now Wolsely was pushing against their right. Batteries rushed onto the best ground they could find, blasting away at any Dothraki foolish enough to remain within range. Being Dothraki, many did. One _ko_ rode across his line waving a sword in the air.

The ground shuddered. Blasts of noise hammered my eardrums.

A few years ago, some know-it-all or other suggested that the Dothraki _kos_ were trying to draw our fire from their own men. It's fiendishly tricky to hit a man on horseback with cannon, as I'd watched Paddy Gough demonstrate against the Sikhs. **[5]**

I doubt it, though. Gough had been foolhardy old lunatic, yes. The Dothraki were just stupid.

Dany played her hand.

She signaled, and Viserion swooped from the air like a scaly white ghost. The Dothraki line had been wavering. Now, it reformed. The remaining riders tore toward the British line with Viserion in the vanguard.

The center was now open for the Scots, but it might not matter.

Viserion flew pretty high, swerving away from the main body. Musketry rattled to little effect. A few spent balls might have reached the dragon – perhaps – but the scales would have shrugged them off at that range. He flew in a long loop. Here, the river worked in Dany's favor for once. We couldn't very well chase after Viserion as he headed for our artillery.

I've seen routs before. The whole line flinched as the dragon passed around them. Horses neighed, and a few threw their riders. Men scurried a touch too quickly. Soldiers pointed, and sergeants laid about their men, trying to dress the lines.

Viserion dived.

I saw a few sparks from around the artillery, and guessed that artillerymen had unslung their carbines. They needn't have bothered. Might as well try to kill an elephant with a pistol. One hopeful fellow shot a rocket, which went comically wide.

Flame guttered everywhere. Ammunition exploded.

The guns glowed red-hot. Burning men rolled away like grotesque effigies of Guy Fawkes. Roasting. The dragon snapped one up, tossed him in the air, and bit down like a raven eating a chunk of meat. The body squirmed. Viserion shook his meal until it went still.

And then, something very odd happened. Viserion started, as if he'd stepped on a needle. Even from the hilltop, I heard his pained roar. Wings opened. They beat the air, and Viserion rose a few inches.

Another jolt.

Wingbeats stopped. Viserion flopped to earth again. He clawed at the ground and screamed all the harder. His head was swiveling, as if he was looking for something.

Daenerys must have seen it first. She shoved a pair of binoculars at me. Pointed.

"Tell me what is happening, _Ko_ Flashman!" she said. "Tell me who that is!"

I was tempted to reply that she should fight her own bloody war against _my_ people, but Jorah growled and fingered the pommel of his sword. I took the binoculars.

A man was crouched in the bushes, perhaps a hundred yards away from the artillery. My fingers tightened on the binoculars when I saw the beard, the wide-brimmed hat. And that ridiculous large-caliber elephant gun.

"Selous?!" I whispered.

…Too loudly, unfortunately. I'd met the cocksure ass only once, in King's Landing. He'd gone on endlessly about the proper techniques for tracking and killing elephants. And tribesmen. And, if his luck held, dragons. Dragons, and more dragons.

Make no mistake; I'd seen that glint in his eye, and had known what it meant. He was a killing gentleman, was Frederick Selous, as surely as someone like Tiger Jack Moran, or Willem Starnberg…or my own Governor, if it comes to that. Just a bit overzealous.

Viserion jerked again, and collapsed.

Selous grinned, tossing another gun to his askari, or ghillie, or whoever he was. A terrified fellow, from the looks of it. The ghillie fumbled with the weapon.

Another battery was already rushing toward the wreckage to set up.

"Er…a hunter, Khaleesi," I said. "Kills large animals for a living. I'd call it quits at this point, unless you want to—"

"Then we shall give him a 'large animal'," she spat.

Daenerys was shaking.

From the pained look on her face, I suspected that the Khaleesi wasn't thinking quite right. Not with a dragon lying dead that she'd treated like a child for the past few years. (And a disturbing sight _that_ had been).

What she did next confirmed it. Though in her defense, she'd already spotted Selous.

"_Drogon!_" she said.

An onyx shadow loomed over us, twenty feet from wingtip to wingtip. Grass flurried. The air whistled by. Even though he was floating a fair distance from us, I could feel the furnace in his throat heating up.

He dived straight at Selous from across the battlefield, like an angry black meteor. Not quite as fast as a train, and but about the same size. I'd rarely seen anything move that quickly. No subtlety this time, either. The main battle line was too busy shooting at Dothraki to provoke the black leviathan flying overhead.

But Drogon was not too busy for them. He breathed. The Essex regiment burned.

His head twisted to one side. I raised my binoculars. Blood burbled down his snout. The wound had only seemed to irritate him, though.

Even the smell of roasting flesh beneath him barely slowed Drogon. I saw the familiar glow in his nostrils. But he might have been better served by coming in at an angle.

Selous was still smiling. He fired again, and tossed the gun aside. The shot went wide. The ghillie had already showed more sense than his employer, and was gone.

And then, Drogon was on him.

You'll not credit it, perhaps, but the dragon actually paused when he got within a few yards of Selous. Pulled up. I've always fancied that he was savoring his revenge, though a zoologist friend assures me that only Man actually thinks that way.

Ne'er mind. I still say he was gloating. Drogon towered over Selous, then - a man with an already-fired elephant gun. And for a moment or two, they just stared at each other.

Selous dived out of the line of fire.

Flames burst from Drogon's nostrils. The plume was wider than anything Viserion had created. Wider, even, than the streaks of fire that had engulfed the Essex regiment. It enveloped Frederick Selous like a malevolent cloud.

In almost the same instant, Selous fired his last shot. A bomb-lance, hidden in the grass. He'd waited until that last, careful second, when Drogon was too close to miss.

I was too far away to hear the explosion. But I saw it.

Great chunks of blood and scales flew from Drogon's chest. Even as he roasted Selous to fiery oblivion, Drogon's wings beat madly. In pain. He rose, rose—and collapsed into a pile of claws and wings, skidding to a stop on the blackened turf where Selous had stood. And now lay. Both burned together.**[6]**

_Well, Selous_, I thought, _You've got your dragon_.

In one of those obnoxious moods that seem to pass for his regular personality, G.B. Shaw once twitted me about falling asleep in the middle of Wagner's ghastly productions. I considered hurting his sensibilities further by pointing out that the _Ring_ cycle would get my attention when they started putting thinner women in their bronze breastplates, but Elspeth was there. So instead, I told him that I'd be happy to watch any time he could produce the _real _Sigurd killing _two _dragons. Our foremost dramatist shut up.**[7]**

In any event…

Wolsely turned his heavy cavalry loose. A red fist with revolvers and sabers rolled up the Dothraki line.

The Khaleesi stood there, frozen.

"Withdraw, Khaleesi," Jorah said.

"I…" she said. "That—"

But Jorah had already given the order.

In the center, the Scots' squares had unraveled with a massive shrug, heading for the central village. A few stolen cannon boomed back at the Highlanders. Some exploded on their gunners. Our own guns replied. We proved significantly better shots.

They were headed for the bridge – and Daenerys's escape route.

But the Unsullied didn't run. I've seen my share of brave last stands – on both sides, thank'ee – and I say without hesitation that the Unsullied were as steady as any troops I'd ever seen.

Our artillery poured into them. They didn't break. Not even when the crossfire caught them. They just fired back, bunched into small groups like Sudanese. Not terribly good shots, admittedly; they fired their rifles from the hip. Cool as cucumbers until the Martini Henrys cut them to ribbons.

And when _that_ didn't work…well, no matter. They charged. Never mind that the bullets were toppling them like ninepins. Five or six thousand spearmen started that trip across the killing ground. A fraction made it there.

From that point forward, it was a slogging match. Spears and bayonets and close-range gunshot wounds. They broke through the line twice. The 92nd rushed to support the 42nd, plugging the gaps. Good bayonet fighters usually beat spearmen, but it was not to be here. Corpses piled up on both sides. Only when they'd unjammed the Gatling did the Highlanders finally pry the Unsullied off.

It took half an hour. By then, there were too few of the 42nd left to celebrate. And the Dragon Queen's janissaries were dead.

The Unsullied had won, in a way. By the time we reached the bridge, the Dothraki had already slipped through.

I'm told that the whole battle lasted five hours, from the first rocket barrage to the last stand. I couldn't swear to it myself; time has a funny way of dancing about in situations like that.

Dany remained on the knoll, as the wreckage of her army passed by. Headed for King's Landing, no doubt…but then what?

"Surrender, Khaleesi," I said. "There's nothing else for it."

She kept staring at the battlefield.

"See here," I said. "My people ain't in the habit of murdering women…Well, at least not pretty ones who happen to be politically vital, and you're both. Send me to Wolsely, and I can—"

"Can what?" she said. "Secure me a life as a captive, _Ko_ Flashman? Shall I become like my brother Viserys, begging to the Khaleesi-of-the-Steam-Lands for my keep?**[8] **No. I will die in battle with my people. _Qoy Qoyi. _They are the blood of my blood. And my blood is the blood of the Dragon."

"But, Dany—"

Jorah bristled when he heard the nickname, looking like some cross between Sir Galahad and a dented, angry tin can. I was past caring. Daenerys interrupted me, though.

"You may go if you wish," she said. "Please. I have no…I do not desire your death."

I looked down at that young slip of a girl, blonde and pale like a porcelain doll. Fists clenched, head raised, daring me to contradict her. It was almost absurd.

And yet, it wasn't. Hadn't I seen that expression before from the women who sat astride the world? From Jeendan as she tore her clothes, and wept, and threatened death to the Khalsa? From the incomparable Yi Concubine, spitting in Sang Ko-in-Sen's face?. And –

_Mheri Jhansi nahi denge! I will not give up my Jhansi._

Aye, there was the Rani of Jhansi as well. And Daenerys was another one. The Dragon's daughter, through and through.

Had she been another woman, I would have called it quits there and wished her good luck and fair sailing. Self-preservation is an important consideration when you're trapped between the last British army in Westeros and hordes of Mongol-Comanches.

But I found, much to my surprise, that I couldn't quite leave the little lunatic to die. I've only done that for a handful of women in my lifetime. A lifetime, I might add, that has largely consisted of skulking away (usually into worse trouble, more's the pity) from danger.

Dani may also have been the only one I hadn't been acquainted with in a way that Arnold would have disapproved of.**[9]**

"Now see here, girl—"

"I am Daenerys Stormborn," she said. "Khaleesi. Mother of Dragons."

She'd spoken gently, but with enough firmness to put her message across.

I looked around, hoping for someone who wasn't a medieval lunatic with a death wish. Alas, there was only Jorah.

"_Say_ something, would you?" I said.

Ser Jorah just stared.

"I've seen the way you look at her, you silly ass," I said. "D'you think I haven't? Tell your Khaleesi to do the bloody sensible thing and give herself up."

And you know? He absolutely hesitated. I felt the slightest thrill of hope in my chest, but—

"That is for the Khaleesi, Englishman."

He seemed to deflate a few degrees as he said it. Sighing, as if he'd bowed to the inevitable a long time ago.

Well, bully for him.

"Please, Dany—" I said.

She flinched, but held up a hand.

"Go," she said. "And live to an old age with your grandchildren in, ah…_Een-ga-lund_. Sing them to sleep with tales of dragons."

* * *

**[1]** Flashman presumably refers to _With Wolseley in Westeros_, written by popular children's novelist G.A. Henty in 1889. Henty had worked as a war correspondent before becoming an author, but had no first-hand experience in Westeros.

**[2] **HMS_Penelope _was completed 1868 as a box-battery ironclad. The Phenomenon rescued her from an eventual fate in the reserve in 1880, when she became the Narrow Sea Squadron's flagship. She was captured during Daenerys Targaryen's aerial surprise attack against the anchored fleet.

**[3] **Rhaegal (1880-1883) was one of the three dragons hatched from the Targaryens' eggs. He was a greenish-bronze creature, considered more dangerous than Viserion, though less than Drogon. HMS _Pallas's_ crew killed him with a whaling bomb-lance.

**[4] **Viserion and Drogon, Daenerys's other two dragons.

**[5] **General Sir Hugh Gough (1779-1869) wore a white "battle coat", supposedly in part to draw fire away from his troops.

**[6]** Frederick Selous (1851-1883), V.C. (posthumous), was a British ivory hunter, soldier, and adventurer. He had served – and hunted – in Rhodesia before the war in Westeros. Had he not perished in the Westerosi Succession Crisis, it is likely that he would have risen to the same stature as men like Abel Chapman, Arthur Henry Neumann, or Frederick Russell Burnham. He remains the only hunter ever to "bag" a dragon.

**[7]** Sigurd, or Siegfried, killed the dragon Fafnir in Wagner's _Der Ring Des Nibelungen_.

**[8]** The Dothraki title for Victoria.

**[9]** Thomas Arnold (1795-1842) was headmaster of Rugby during Flashman's unsuccessful tenure there. Flashman displayed a fear of him throughout his life that bordered on the pathological.


	3. Excerpt, Chapter 22

**Excerpt, Chapter 22: Flashman and the Iron Throne**

The torch crackled. My shadow crawled along walls illuminated orange: a great black blob racing through the Red Keep's tunnels.

I was already wheezing by the time I'd passed the warped dragons' skulls. The cellars were musty by anyone's standards – ne'er mind for a man approaching sixty, like your humble correspondent. But I soldiered on, if not so much for Queen and Country as for self-preservation. And also…aye, well.

The stone floor gave way to dirt, and the dirt to mud. My boots sank inches into a soupy mass, whose contents I didn't care to speculate about – especially given the more disturbing examples of fauna that Westeros had inflicted on me of late.

The tunnel opened. It was almost as spacious as a Parisian sewer. Water had seeped toward the center, which had the consistency of a swamp. I hugged the walls.

A light appeared ahead. Another torch. The man holding it must have swung around, since his torch _fuffed_ as it swiveled. He was barely more than a shadow from this distance. But I knew I'd guessed the right tunnel.

The light winked out. I followed it. My boots squelched faster into the mud, and I wheezed in time with them. It seemed like ages rushing through that nightmare maze, and ages more trying to figure out which tunnel he'd taken. I found it, though: the bastard couldn't hide his footprints, and there was his light again –

_Crack!_

A gunshot. I ducked. Torchlight glistened on the stalactites, which told me that he hadn't moved. He was waiting.

Well, let him. I had more time than _he _did, and that was the point. Let the bastard take the time to _mak siccar_**[1]** with half the British army on his heels, and good hunting to him.

He must have realized that too, since I heard his footsteps a moment later. I got up and blazed away at him with my own Derringer – three shots, and not a one of them accurate, blast 'em. He turned again, and I saw the glint of metal in the torchlight, and jumped for cover just before—

_Flick._

A misfire. He cursed.

I fumbled to my feet covered in ooze, but my hand was steady enough – or at least, I'd concealed the shakes to my satisfaction.

I caught the first good glimpse of his face, then – the black hair with its hints of grey, the trimmed goatee, and that unmistakable curl of the lip, so like Rudi's boyish grin decades before. Uncannily so. I noted with some satisfaction that his own robes were dripping with mud.

Petyr grinned, sucking in that stale air as if it was a spring day in the French countryside.

"_Well_. Confound me if it isn't Mister Flashman."

He tossed the two-shot Derringer into the lake in an overwrought, ostensibly offhand gesture that would have made an actor at the Gaiety blush - though I'd seen worse from a few.**[2]** The pistol sank with a _plunk_.

But Master Baelish had a glint in his eye, didn't he just? Smiling like little Havvy when he'd done something wrong, and bloody well knew it. (This was before Havvy had disappointed his father by growing up to be respectable, mind).**[3]**

"What gave me away?" he said. "Not that it matters. The Gold Cloaks'll be out in force by now. They're armed well enough—"

"Wolsely ain't asleep, you know," I said. "He's disarming 'em like Pandies**[4]** as we speak. Set up some cannons at the Royal Armory, I shouldn't wonder. Unless you think they'll attack us with swords."

The smile narrowed. No, young Petyr knew which way the wind blew where the Goldcloaks were concerned. If ever a regiment belonged to the Flashy School of Survival, they were it.

"Not that you'd have gone far," I said. "Certainly not to your factory in the Fingers."

For the shortest of moments, his eyes widened. Now it was my turn to smile. It's a coward's luxury, twisting the knife in – as long as you know you've got 'em. And you had better know.

"You'll find Her Majesty don't take kindly to lordlings making their own Tower muskets," I said.

Petyr's hands clenched, and then loosened. He just stood there for a moment or two, staring off into space. No doubt calculating like mad. At last, he rested his hand on one of those bizarre underground vines that crept up the walls.

"Clever," he said. "Not just a stupid soldier after all, eh?"

"I have my moments."

Petyr sighed again in that sharp way of his. And that smile...I felt my skin crawling just a bit more.

"You know, Mr. Flashman…" he said, "I got into a duel when I was a young man."

"Can't say I care, particularly."

"Stupid decision, really," Petyr said. "I got this—"

He traced a scar along his face.

"—and decided that fighting wasn't for me. No, I'm afraid bean-counting and collecting whores have been my chief preoccupations after that. Much better at it, you see."

"Every man has his calling. So if ye don't mind, I think the Governor-General will have a few questions before hanging you-"

Petyr barked a laugh.

"Ah, but you seem to have forgotten something, Mr. Flashman," he said. "And I must admit that it only occurred to me a moment ago as well."

"Oh?"

"I'm still a Westerosi noble," he said. "I trained with a sword as part of my education..."

The smile widened.

"...And you're an old man."

I'd been expecting it. Expecting _something_. But Petyr was young – and quick, for all his lack of martial ardor.

He tossed his torch in my face. I yelped and dodged to one side, guarding my eyes instinctively. My pistol cracked…and the shot went wide. Petyr's sword left its sheath in the same motion.

There are times when the true-blue coward has his advantages over the normal man. There's no better goad than fear. Your average fellow on the street can convince himself that maybe it won't be _so_ bad if he don't fight to the last breath. The coward, though…well, he _knows_ that it's now or never, grips his sword like grim death, and blubbers into the fray.

But Petyr was _fast_. He wasn't necessarily _smooth_; his movements had a rusty jerkiness to them from years of neglect. But he was fast. Even with that medieval meatcleaver.

He cut at my cheek like De Gautet on one of his better days – and I fell back just in time, howling blood murder. Petyr advanced, cutting left and right. My foot slipped on the soupy floor, and he was almost on me.

I barely steadied myself against the wall, and then he was coming for me all the harder. Cut. Parry. Cut – I scrambled backward. Ward —no, a feint, and I backed up.

I angled for a tunnel that would have hampered his sword-arm. Petyr knew what he was about, though, and maneuvered away. Now I could only hope to draw him into the darkness – where I could fall on my knees and hack for his ankles, or find some way to make my weight tell. But even then, he'd have the light at his back.

I tried my hand at offbalancing him. Baelish seemed like another of those chessmasters, of whom I'd met a fair few. Bismarck, for one. And none of them like their cleverness thrown in their faces.

"Bit obvious, really, when you think about it," I said.

"Oh? Do tell."

Feint – Cut.

"It ain't every day that _all_ the warlords choose to attack us, even though we've got the means to smash 'em," says I. "Especially when they all make stupid mistakes. Almost as if someone was whittling everyone down."

"Huh. Imagine that—HAH!"

He tried again. His blade seemed everywhere at once, too, and I decided that taunting him wasn't working.

The bastard was still talking, though.

"Now, now," Petyr said. "I _did _give you a chance to screw that blonde piece before I sent her into your Gatlings. Just think. A black-whiskered Targaryen bastard on the Iron Throne. I almost thought her dragons could pull it off, too."

The blade was like quicksilver. It glittered with that torchlight – but. Yes. I turned it with the forte and tried for a mad sweep. It opened his cheek, and he leaned too far back – overbalanced. Panicked.

I tried for another cut. Petyr was on guard again. Not for the last time, I cursed the lack of furniture to kick at him. So it was more of the same, except with Petyr bleeding and tense.

My strength was fading. I wheezed. The last bits of endurance were leaching out, and my grip was becoming looser.

Petyr's cuts felt like hammer blows. I fell back to the Maltese cross. Not a good choice, looking back; it's an up-down-across motion that leaves you winded in half a minute. And that's if you're young, which I wasn't.

I nearly collapsed, but Petyr's impatience saved me. He slashed wildly, and our blades clashed hilt to hilt. We closed.

_Finally_, thinks I…but no. Baelish had a weasel's own slipperiness, and he'd been trained in that free-for-all wrestling that Westerosi knights used instead of good swordplay. He wrapped my arm in some sort of hold and wrenched. I heard something pop. And screamed.

My sword clattered to the floor. Baelish was wary, though – he scrambled for his own sword, and then edged closer again with one eye on me. He was trembling. Blood from the cheek I'd sliced was still dribbling into the mud.

For my own part, I was shivering with that red-faced terror that my enemies had always mistaken for anger.

"Wait," I gasped. "Just – ugh - Just wait, curse you! Please don't kill me…I—It's not _fair_, and _oh please don't-_"

I might have blubbed, then. I'm fairly sure that I tried to clutch his cloak and slobber on it like I'd seen Westerosi supplicants do. And you know, Baelish just _stared_ at me for a second. Puzzled, like. A smile crept across his face.

"A fair try, Mr. Flashman," he said. "Points for theatre, even. But we both know you're not the type to—"

"Urk!"

I clutched my chest. My heart was hammering far too fast for comfort – so much that I was half-sure that I _was_ actually dying. My reply—or attempt thereat—came out as a croak.

…And Petyr leaned just that slightest bit closer.

I lunged, and punched his crotch for all I was worth. Petyr tried to turn. It was far too late for that. My fist landed solidly between his legs.

The blow doubled the bastard over. He gave a strangled yelp and dropped. I stomped on him a few times – twice to take the fight out of him, and once for luck.

When that was over, I retrieved the sword with my one good hand, stabbed his sword-arm for good measure (eliciting another pleasant shriek), and held it to his throat.

And then I almost _did_ collapse. It hadn't all been shamming. The adrenaline was gone.

It took Master Baelish a while to recover from that. _Someone_ might know to check the tunnels. They'd find us eventually. Maybe. He lay there for a while, gasping and wincing. I tried to catch my breath.

Finally, he spoke again.

"House arrest…might not be so bad," Baelish said at last. "Well, assuming you people don't hang me."

"I wouldn't be so sure," I said.

Even then, I saw that glint in his eye. Bleeding and broken beneath the Red Keep – but still giddy with mischief, after a fashion.

An idea struck me. It was one of the better ones - not close to convincing Jefferson Davis that I'd come to fix the lightning rod, but more satisfying, in its way.

Baelish laughed. It was a high-pitched sound that blended with his gasps of pain, it but was laughter.

"Your Wolsely will find me useful still, I think," he said. "No…we'll be seeing each other again. They won't hang me until the Walkers are dealt with, at least."

"That's too bad, then," I said.

"What's too bad?" Baelish said.

"The way you died trying to escape."

It took a moment for the realization to dawn on Baelish. For his eyes to widen, and watch as my blade came down. Even a belated attempt to dodge.

Not fast enough. My sword cut him off-center, but it cut deeply. Baelish was almost too weak to cry out when the second blow fell. Never mind the third.

I haven't done much murder in my time, and I don't recommend it. Bully and coward I might be – in spades – but by the time you reach sixty, you've begun to care more about whores and a good glass of port than watching your enemies suffer.

But it wasn't _my_ debt that Baelish had owed.

"An offering of blood, for the Dragon in the Night Lands," I whispered. "Enjoy, Khaleesi."

I dropped the sword and dragged my battered carcass toward the exit.

He was a foul man, was Petyr Baelish. Charming in his own way – like Yehonala, except that Petyr put too much stock in his own _bandobast_ **[5]**, and too little in ours. Petyr Baelish and the Incomparable Yi Concubine: a pretty pair of vipers _they'd_ have made.

There was, of course, one crucial difference. I'd actually liked Yehonala, for all that she'd been Caligula in female form. Baelish, though? Well, Yehonala was still warming the Imperial Throne at Peking, wasn't she, while Baelish was feeding worms in the Red Keep. That should be indication enough.

* * *

[1] "Make sure." The phrase is part of Scottish dialect, perhaps picked up - albeit tongue-in-cheek - from Elspeth's family.

[2] The Gaiety Theatre, built in 1868, was known for its musical burlesque, pantomime, and operetta performances. It remained standing until 1956.

[3] Flashman doubtless refers to his own son. The younger, rather unfortunately-named Harry Albert Victor Flashman ("Havvy") became a man of the cloth.

[4] "Pandies" - Derogatory label for rebelling sepoys during the Indian Mutiny. After the Mutiny began, the British often disarmed Indian regiments at gunpoint.

[5] "Organization" (Hindi)


	4. Excerpt, Chapter 25

**Excerpt, Chapter 25: Flashman and the Iron Throne**

I'd been a week on horseback before the crags of Casterly Rock loomed in the distance. And quite a sight it was, too: crenellations and battlements built on a sheer cliff, black against the blazing sky like something out of The Thousand and One Nights.

I entered the city with a small group of escorts. They were picked officers from the Guides, long-bearded and armed to the teeth like a troop of Baluchi _badmashes_**[1]** – exactly the sort of ruffians you want at your back.

Lannister horsemen met us: a mass of red cloaks and burnished plate armor, for all the world like European knights.  
As I was escorted – which is to say, roughly pushed – into Casterly Rock, I ran across some of the Lannisters' more irregular forces.

Some wag remarked that Darwin's theories only started making headway when Britain discovered Westerosi mountain clans. This is probably true. Picture, if you will, a crowd of louse-bitten men wrapped in fur and wearing horned helmets. A sea of body odor and missing pieces: eyes, teeth, and manners. One hillman slobbered his discontent at me. It was Moon Brothers dialect, so I only caught enough to be mildly insulted.

Unbidden, my mind dredged up one of Arnold's Latin tags: _"Quintili Vare, legiones redde!"_**[2]**

They finally shuffled me off to what seemed a small office.

It was filled with ornately carved furniture of some wood I couldn't identify: dark reddish stuff. The patterns reminded me of Elspeth's passion for Second Empire pieces: masses of laurel leaves and Romanesque columns as table-legs.

A rather deformed-looking man sat at the desk. Only when he drummed his fingers on the table did I realize that his arms were rather too short. Dwarfish. So this was Tyrion Lannister, then. House Lannister's "Imp". And, by a quirk of fate, its current head.**[3]**

The mannikin pointed at me.

"You," he said. "You look old and British enough to be important. Who are you?"

My hillman escort poked me in the ribs, presumably as encouragement.

"Harry Flashman, Your Highness," I said. "Representative of the Governor General – er, Victoria's Hand. Retired British officer. Um. VC, former diplomatic functionary in Afghanistan, India, China—in a manner of speaking –and, ah…"

I debated mentioning that I was distantly related to the Pagets, but decided against it.

"…and I have a message for House Lannister."

Tyrion's brow furrowed. Fingers laced together as he leaned forward, resting his chin on them.

"In private," he said.

The hillman nodded and withdrew.

So did the occasional courtiers.

Only one man remained: a dark, scruffy-looking fellow in a mail hauberk. He was big enough, though, for all his stubble – and seemed more dangerous than the barbarians and Lannister popinjays I'd seen outside. He had the ghost of a smirk when he looked me over.

Bronn, no doubt. They'd briefed me on him before I left. A "sellsword". Tyrion's pet mercenary.

Tyrion looked up. Rubbed his hands together.

"Well!" he said. "Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? You want the Lannisters docile. Correct?"

Well, I'll give Tyrion one thing: he was direct. A rare quality in Westeros. I realized that something was bothering me about his diction. Careful, but almost sarcastically so – and with the hint of a drawl.

"…Correct," I said.

"And you're either demanding my surrender or considering me for some sort of regency. Correct?"

"Er, yes. I'm supposed to report back, you see. It's—ah, a bit irregular but—"

"Terms?" he said.

"—ah, what?"

He flapped his hand in an impatient circle.

"_Terms_," he said. "For letting the Lannisters keep Casterly Rock. You obviously have them. What are they?"

Direct, as I said. And not by halves.

"Well, you see—"

"Oh, out with it."

"We're worried that you'll try to free your family," I said. "We want someone who will – er – cooperate with the Empress's Hand in King's Landing."

Tyrion was silent for a moment.

"So you want me to be a _puppet_ king," he said at last.

"Literally," added Bronn.

Tyrion gave him an "oh-how-original" glare, which was gleefully ignored.

"Anything else?" Tyrion said.

"Her Majesty's government doesn't want another rising on its hands," I said. "Just an easy transition."

Tyrion was giving me a flat stare, as if I'd said the stupidest thing in the world.

"A rising."

"Um…yes."

"Mr. _Flashman_," he said. "I'm an alcoholic dwarf who spends his days shopping for whores."

"Er…"

"Now, if Her Majesty's government can somehow produce an unusually stupid chimpanzee with Lannister blood, then I'll concede you have me beat. But Joffrey's already dead."

He sat back, twiddling his thumbs and waiting.

"…Welcome to the Empire," I said.

We all exhaled. I appreciate diplomatic immunity as much as the next man – assuming that the next man is traveling through a medieval wasteland filled with rape and pillage – but it's much better when a tyrant _knows_ you're useful to him. Even a tyrant as dissipated as Tyrion Lannister. For their part, tyrants are usually grateful that they don't have to torture and execute you yet.

"Now then," I said. "I believe you mentioned whores…"

* * *

**[1]** Colloq., "bandits". From Hindi.

**[2]** "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" Allegedly uttered by Augustus after the Germans had annihilated Varus's legions at the Teutoburg Forest. From Suetonius.

**[3]** Tyrion Lannister, variously called "The Imp" and "The Halfman" for his dwarfism, was Tywin's younger son. He inherited leadership of House Lannister after the capture of his father and brother by British forces in the Riverlands Campaign.


End file.
